journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen
Jacques LE GOFF – L’Europe est-elle née au Moyen Age?, Editions du Seuil, Paris,
2003, 341p. – ISBN 2-02-056341-X – 22,00 Ä.
This book is conceived as an essay inviting reflection. Although the work contains no direct
answer to the question posed by the title, its narrative suggests that what we now consider to
be, in socio-cultural terms, Europe, first emerged in the Middle Ages, more specifically in the
13th and 14th centuries. The technical appendix contains two maps, extensive chronological
tables, a detailed thematic bibliography as well as an index of names and places.
The book is most interesting in its interpretive evaluations, which cover a wide range of
related subjects. The narrative outlines six stages of development. The first four hundred
years are a dramatic mix of various waves of Völkerwanderungen and of strenuous efforts to
build up the Latin Christian infrastructure of society; then come two hundred years of
abortive attempts by the Carolingians and Ottonians to unite the core of Europe under one
rule. The author identifies a tension, about 1000 AD, between “l’Europe rêvée” and
“l’Europe potentielle” (p.61). In the next two centuries as it extends to the East and the
North East, Europe starts to take shape with various modifications to its feudal structure.
This development culminates in the “beautiful” Europe of the cities and universities
(p.135) of the 13 th century when arts, philosophy and commerce flourished magnificently,
and in the balance of spiritual and temporal, “the values of Heaven descended upon the
Earth” (pp.198–203). Even technical know-how makes remarkable progress. The
achievement of mendicant orders is also praised, while the seamy side, the Inquisition and
the Crusades against the heretics, is glossed over.
The marks of crisis are perceived only in the 14 th century. Apart from the Black Death
and peasant revolts, etc., it is mainly the Papal schism that matters most for the question
embodied in the title. This paved the way for the establishment of national churches and for
concordats in which the Holy See had to safeguard its ecclesiastical jurisdiction by
agreement with individual states (p.226). New heresies and the rise of national
consciousness are seen as further marks of a new epoch, in which the socio-cultural profile
of Europe underwent substantial changes.
The build-up of Medieval Europe, with Western Christianity acting as an integrative force
within society, was confronted by two opposing poles, the Byzantine and the Islamic (p.41).
The latter interfered twice: first by creating an exclave in the Iberian peninsula, the last
vestiges of which were finally swept away as late as the end of the 15 th century. The Islamic
thrust by the Ottoman Turks into South Eastern Europe culminated in the liquidation of the
Byzantine Empire. “Paradoxically”, as Le Goff puts it, “this abolished a potential obstacle
to the future unification of Europe” (p.259). What in terms of geography is the European
East, i.e. Europe of Greek and Slavic (‘Orthodox’) Christianity, is supposed to be beyond
the pale of the legitimate concept of Europe.
The author’s question of whether contemporary Europe was born in the Middle Ages
deserves some more concrete indications of their imputed affinity. For instance, some
comments on two structural or rather institutional issues of the West European Middle Ages
would be useful: with respect to the concept of the two swords, the spiritual and the
temporal, and within the former on the confrontation between Papal autocracy and the
jurisdiction of the Councils. Is it not the case that the superiority of the spiritual power
postulated by the Holy See foreshadows the universal principle of human rights that the
European states are enjoined to implement in their legislature and to uphold in their
administration and judiciary? And may not the Councillar movement be seen as a secondary
element of the general historical trajectory towards a more pluralistic power structure?
And finally, what about the period from 1500 to 2000 AD? Although this dynamic and
eventful epoch is not covered by the title of the book under review, its author gives it some
cursory attention, focussing on detail rather than on the overall picture. Nevertheless, even